


An ode to Death

by carxies



Series: Adronitis [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Injuries, Slow Burn, this is a secon part of the series and will sadly not make any sense if u didnt read the first one, warning for an animal death that i find sad but is not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23177521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carxies/pseuds/carxies
Summary: “Do you remember what happened?” Andrew asked, because it was logical. He was unsure whenever he wished to know the truth and that, too, was terribly human.“I do,” Kevin said. “Neil stabbed me.”-Or, the aftermath of living alongside humans again weights down on both Andrew and Neil
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: Adronitis [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651363
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41





	An ode to Death

**Author's Note:**

> This thing, as the first one, took me only two weeks to write, and I have honestly no idea what it all leads to, but guess I have the last part to figure it out. Enjoy!

There used to be gods.

There used to be gods, long before the humans were born, long before anything lived or died.

Alone in the universe, they found a planet of nothing and deemed it worth of becoming their cradle. They lay in the ashes, still burning, and fell asleep. Their bodies put off the fire and from their bodies mountains and trees grew. Oceans and rivers poured like tears from their eyes, slipped past their closed eyelids.

The surface of the Earth their blanket, they dreamt a long dream.

They dreamed of creatures unseen, covered in feathers and in scales, covered in fur and in skin. The dream, endless, reminded the sleepers of their loneliness and the loneliness awoke them. Alone in the universe, out of their own bodies they moulded the creatures they dreamed off.

The creatures, however, were nothing but ghosts, empty shells. The sleepers, saddened and tired once more, closed their eyes and wished.

Out of their wish, Life and Death were born.

Or so was thought.

-

Andrew wouldn’t know. He remembered Earth filling and only if it was to die, he would, perhaps, find his peace as well.

-

Kevin Day lived.

Wounded and weakened, Kevin lay in the hospital room once again. This time, he remained awfully quiet – he had not woken up yet. His cheeks were pale against the white sheets, his heartbeat unsteady, reflected on a monitor next to his bed.

Kevin was praised by the people and yet alone in the world, the way all humans were. It was a bitter destiny, etched on their souls like a curse. It always had been.

Andrew sat in the chair by Kevin’s side, a guard more than a friend.

Doctors came by and left, multiple times through the day. They checked Kevin’s vitals and not once said a word. Once they closed the door behind themselves, Andrew would take Kevin’s hand and heal his wound, bit by bit, as much as he could.

Then he would close his eyes and sleep, dream of the sleepers like there was a message they were trying to pass down. Andrew couldn’t make out the meaning.

Neil had, after calling the ambulance for Kevin and writing Andrew a note that said nothing, disappeared from the apartment. He didn’t take much with him, as he had never felt the sense of belonging to a place or time. Andrew, however, couldn’t help but notice his spare glasses missing.

He had taken one of Kevin’s history books with him to the hospital, but the letters were blurred together. After a while, they spelled Neil’s name and they spelled his name, so Andrew shut the book closed and didn’t dare to look again.

Without the spare pair and without Kevin to tell him where the original pair could be hidden, Andrew had no other choice than to buy new ones. It was a terribly human thing to do, to walk in the store and have his sight measured, to give false options about different shapes and colours of the frames.

A week of wait, they said after he had paid an unreasonable amount of money for a human imperfection. It had been a week since then.

It had been over a week since Kevin closed his eyes and didn’t open them again.

Andrew didn’t understand human emotion. He didn’t understand jealousy and he didn’t understand joy, but by Kevin’s side in the hospital room, he understood anger.

-

Days before the punishment, Andrew sat on a balcony with a human man.

The city underneath them was celebrating a win and grieving a loss, but it had all looked the same to Andrew. He and the man talked. Talked about the world and what was left of it, what there was to do and what there was to abandon. The man had a way with words. His words held together like a poem and slipped past his lips like a song.

Andrew, young in his ageless existence, had been mesmerized by this man. He kept on returning to the palace, night by night, eager to hear what the man had to say next.

That particular night, the man’s words pierced through Andrew the way a spear could not.

-

As expected, and perhaps fated, Andrew ran into the human doctor. They stood by the vending machine side by side.

“What brings you back to this place?” Renee asked, tossing coins in the machine

Her eyes didn’t leave the glass of the machine, but her gaze found Andrew’s in their reflections. It said more than her words, and Andrew chose to hear them. They were worry and they were comfort, both out of place and yet somewhat soothing.

The chocolate bar Renee bought dropped down and Renee stuck her hand inside the machine.

“A friend,” Andrew said, all kinds of vague. The word tasted bitter on his tongue and he knew even the sweetness of chocolate couldn’t wash it down. A friend. It meant Kevin and it meant Neil. It meant _him_.

Renee nodded and stuffed the snack in the pocket of her pants. “I am sorry to hear that. Has your friend been hurt?”

“Stabbed,” Andrew said. “The doctors won’t tell me anything.”

Renee finally turned to Andrew, her face pulled in a tight frown. Andrew doubted her age for a moment. “Can I see them?”

Andrew measured her with a glare that didn’t scare her, not into taking her question back, not into flinching. Underneath her skin, her bones were made of steel.

Andrew relaxed his shoulders, slouched them down as far as his always tense body allowed, and nodded.

He led Renee through the plain corridors to Kevin’s room, used to all the sudden turns and doors. Renee followed in quiet but sure steps, kept her distance from Andrew for his sake more than her own. She was as intriguing as humans got.

Kevin had, unsurprisingly, not moved since Andrew left him half an hour ago. His hair stuck to his forehead, dirty, and his face lacked his usual wrinkles. He looked all wrong.

Renee walked past Andrew to the unmoving form of Kevin, snatching the board attached to his bed. She flipped through the papers and then looked at Andrew over her shoulder.

“Will you keep an eye on the door so I can see his wound?” she asked, her smile all hope and firm belief.

Andrew’s chest rose with protest that died on his tongue. He shut the door and leaned his back against the cheap plastic of it, observing Renee as she unwrapped Kevin’s bandages.

Andrew had not seen the cut since he poured the remains of his strength into it. He didn’t take a very good look at it even back then.

From afar, Andrew couldn’t make the injury out. Renee’s quiet little gasp spoke for itself.

Andrew pushed off the door and strode to Kevin’s bed. On Kevin’s left side ran a scar, thin and white. It looked old, long healed.

“It is impossible for the wound to heal this past,” Renee spoke softly, her calm façade for once shaken.

She was interesting and Andrew was tired, out of his mind.

“It is,” he said.

He placed his hand over Kevin’s chest, squeezing his eyes shut with the effort it took to focus his powers where wanted them. The human body struggled with the concentration the task demanded and the unnatural strength it was to hold.

Drained, at the edge of losing his consciousness, Andrew jerked his hand back to his side.

Where it lay seconds ago, Kevin’s skin was smooth, free of any blemishes.

Renee gazed at Andrew with wonder rather than fear, one in a million. She ran a finger over Kevin’s chest as well, her touch so gentle it wouldn’t had woken him up even if it could. She didn’t ask how or who.

She smiled like humans were capable of accepting without demanding.

“He will wake up soon,” she said. “I am sure he will.”

Andrew’s eyes slid to the monitor with Kevin’s heartbeat, a traitorous thing. “How can you be sure?”

“He has you,” Renee said, like he was the answer.

-

Kevin Day woke up.

His body was too weak to remain conscious for longer than a few hours. His cut was healed on the surface, but Andrew didn’t know how deep the knife had reached. He didn’t know how far his powers reached through a human hand.

Kevin woke and asked Andrew stupid questions, how many practices he had missed, why was Andrew there, where was Neil.

Andrew didn’t answer him and Kevin went back to sleep, healing his fragile body.

Andrew then summoned the coin and tossed it in the air. Where it landed on Kevin’s history book, it kept on spinning.

-

On the day Kevin was to be discharged and allowed to rest home, Andrew stood by the window and stared at the smudged world outside, his reflection overshadowing it. He did not look like himself.

“Do you remember what happened?” Andrew asked, because it was logical. He was unsure whenever he wished to know the truth and that, too, was terribly human.

Kevin hummed from the bed behind Andrew, where he was struggling to pull his jeans on without bending at the waist. Andrew didn’t help him.

“I do,” Kevin said. “Neil stabbed me.”

Andrew sucked in a breath and blew it against the window, against the blurry image of his human face. He dragged his finger over the glass, his memory tired but remembering the symbol he was looking for.

He couldn’t forget even if he wished to.

‘ _Abram’_ he wrote on the glass, in the old language. The symbol for the name reminded Andrew of a key, and that was irony itself. Somewhere, and Andrew had a good idea where, Neil had to feel the pull of his true name in the depths of his bare essence.

Andrew stepped away from the window and the symbol. Kevin was now pulling the hospital robe of his body, the strings of it tangling around his arms. He looked like an overgrown toddler, left alone for the first time.

Andrew reached out to help him and his hand twitched mid-air, a chill running up his arm and settling in his chest.

Abram still remembered.

-

The second day home, Kevin Day was talking about his game one second and collapsed to the ground the next. Andrew, alarmed, checked his pulse and he wished for the coin, but Kevin’s pulse was steady and the coin kept on spinning.

Kevin gained his consciousness again in matter of minutes and he brushed the passing out as aftermath of his injury, but Andrew knew better than that.

-

They sat together in front of the windows in the living room.

Kevin was set on catching up on the games he missed while he was in the hospital and Andrew picked up where he left off in the history book.

People glorified Napoleon a bit too much for his taste, but he was not going to skip an entire chapter because of it. Most of the so-called facts were a black and white photo of the colourful picture, misleading at best. Humans craved truth that played into their cards, truth that bended for them when needed.

Humans had, as Neil said, not changed. They had always wanted stories to be told about them, stories they themselves wrote.

Andrew skipped the chapter after all.

“When will Neil come back?” Kevin asked out of sudden, like he could hear the name on Andrew’s mind.

Andrew tore his eyes away from the page and looked at Kevin. His wound was healed and he would suffer no permanent damage of his movement or health. The doctors couldn’t explain his fast healing process and were glad to send Kevin home to never meet again. Andrew shared the sentiment.

Kevin’s face showed no sign of a doubt, only an odd emotion Andrew had long forgotten in the prison of the garden.

“Are you eager to welcome Death back into your life?”

Kevin sighed. “It’s Neil,” he said. “He didn’t mean to kill me.”

Andrew’s ribcage tightened around his lungs. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am.”

-

The human man did not shy away at the sound of one of Andrew’s many names – Life.

The man raised his goblet and downed it with a laugh. When he stood on Andrew’s toes, the sun falling behind them, his kiss tasted like wine and that joyful laugh.

-

Andrew had slept for three days and three nights.

It wasn’t because he felt the necessity for the rest. His body, however, did need it if it was to survive the travel outside the human realm. His slumber was dreamless, the way it was in the gardens. His soul, if he could even call his existence that, was floating in a void instead, unreachable by the humans and untouchable by anything else.

Out of curiosity that was entirely human in its nature, Andrew swam against the flow of time, back as far as his memory allowed. Like a ghost, he overlooked events he had once witnessed, wars and victories, plagues and births.

He turned his gaze away from the decade only he and Neil knew to be the years leading to their perdition.

The years flew by and he laid his eyes on the old dynasty, the land of the sand, his humans bright beyond their time. Andrew did not know regret the way mortals felt it, but his being weighted more than planets in the space at the sight.

Before humans there were animals and before animals, the world was as empty. Andrew’s memory, similarly, showed him nothing except darkness. One day, he awoke with the echo of the story of the sleepers in his mind, and that was it.

Andrew jerked awake.

His body was sore and yet refreshed, his eyes burning but his sight sharp.

Andrew checked on Kevin, tiptoed to his room and waited in a silence to hear Kevin breathe out. Only at the steady rhythm of Kevin’s chest raising and falling, Andrew had left his bedroom.

He locked the main door after him and climbed the stairs to the roof, stood there and watched the city come to life underneath. At the first ray of the still tired sun, Andrew closed his eyes and allowed his mind to take him where his body could not.

-

The bridge looked different through human eyes. It was dulled in its colour, barely a dot in a distance. Each step he took forward it was heavier, slower.

Where the grass met the stone, the bridge recognized Life but not Andrew. The human body collapsed on the ground as if it was nothing but shattered glass, slipping off Life’s shoulders like the cape it was. Centuries of weight fell with the body, all the heaviness it held down between its bones.

Life did not look back to see it lying lifeless in the grass. It was one of the many ironies of the universe.

The bridge welcomed Life home, the stone whispering a thousand years old words that lost their meaning a long time ago.

Its form no longer physically bound, Life did not need to walk on the stone to cross the bridge.

At the other end, on the ground that was neither hot or cold, sat Death. It was clothed in its human costume and a blanket of eternal sorrow. At its feet, there was only ash and Life’s true name written in it by a long claw.

Life stared at its own name, sloppy and yet unmistakeable to its eyes. Life did not feel the pull of the it, and it was as soothing as it was cutting, because the memory of feeling was still fresh in Life’s mind.

Life gazed ahead instead, at the two paths leading through the high grass of the field. In the middle, there was a fence. Life came as close as it dared, couldn’t help but look. Upon a proper inspection, the suspicion was confirmed.

One of its stakes had been torn out of the ground.

“Kevin lived and yet you are back,” Life said. “The fence is damaged by our doing and yet you wait for it to be repaired.”

“I do not know any better,” Death said and it had nothing to do with returning to the gardens.

Life huffed, a human habit it hadn’t shaken off yet. It dressed in the human form, out of respect more than anything, and sat next to Death.

It grabbed a handful of ash, its name with it. The ash burned into soil and out of the soil grew a single flower. The humans called it the tiger flower.

Death gazed at the three purple petals with confusion reflected on its face, a human habit it hadn’t shaken off yet. Life, an ageless being, stood at the edge of its patience.

“Touch it,” Life said.

“I will kill it,” Death said.

“You will not, because you will not mean to kill it,” Life said.

Death blew out a breath it didn’t need to exist and reached out. Its finger shook where it came in contact with the soft petal, but the flower did not wither in Life’s palm.

“It has always been your choice,” Life said and crushed the flower in its hand. “Just as it had been mine.”

With that, Life stood and turned its back to Death, crossing the bridge once again.

There, in the yellow grass, lay two bodies. Side by side, they seemed to share a breath, alone at the very end of the world.

-

Andrew, once more Andrew in a drained human body, lay in the grass and ignored Neil lying beside him, present, at the tips of Andrew’s fingers. Andrew ignored Neil and his calm breathing, ignored the bubble around them about to burst. Andrew ignored Neil’s little smile and he ignored the regained heaviness of his chest. Andrew ignored it all because none of it mattered.

Or so he wished to believe.

-

There used to be chaos.

There used to be chaos, long before Life or Death existed in the universe.

The world had not been salvaged by their birth, as the world would be in a state of chaos for as long as humans would walk the Earth.

This concept proved to be awfully difficult to explain to a human man.

“What about the animals though?” Kevin asked from his armchair, a duvet thrown over his lap and a mug of herb tea on top of it. “They would die as well.”

“The animals lived before man and they will persist long after man dies,” Andrew said, his tone irritated but his attention intrigued.

Kevin shook his head. “So many of them are domesticated. Animals we call pets would die because their instincts alone wouldn’t be enough for them to survive on their own.”

Andrew inhaled, his reply on the tip of his tongue, snarly and perhaps excessive, when the door in the hall clicked unlocked and Neil walked in the apartment.

Neil had been hiding, for the most part, ever since his return out of self-ordered exile. He had been hiding his face from Kevin, avoiding him to the point of only leaving his room when Kevin was not home. He had been hiding his face from Andrew, although Andrew’s judgment meant a very little to him.

Andrew refused to stare at him in front of Kevin, refused to give him any attention at all. And yet, when Neil stopped in the doorframe and leaned against the wall, preparing himself for the battle of words, Andrew couldn’t help himself but to look.

“What are you arguing about?” Neil asked, all fake casualness that Andrew would had believed him weeks ago. Not after he had seen the fence.

“Andrew thinks all animals would survive if the humankind was to go extinct,” Kevin said, all casualness that came with the tender offer of his friendship.

“What about guinea pigs?” Neil asked and he was looking back at Andrew, his gaze as burning as Andrew remembered it to be millenniums ago. His look was a challenge and it was a question, the way it always had been with him.

Neil’s return to the human realm, although neither of them acknowledged the fact, meant things bigger than babysitting one human.

“Guinea pigs still run free in certain parts of the world,” Andrew said and titled his head, his glasses slipping down his nose.

Neil bit down his smirk, but it was still unmistakable in the corners of his mouth.

-

The night of the kiss, except much later, Andrew lay in the grass by the river and gazed at the dark spring sky. The stars used to look brighter back then, when the humans weren’t powerful enough to destroy their shine.

Neil found Andrew there, in the grass, except he wasn’t _Neil_ back then.

He was _Abram_ , his true self.

-

Andrew’s eyelids were heavy, but he didn’t sleep that night.

He sat in the middle of his bed, on top of the dark silky sheets, and gazed out of the window. The view was not as good as from the living room, terrible compared to the roof. The apartment was quiet, but the silence was different from the one he was used to. This silence was shared, and it was quiet because Kevin and Neil were asleep, not because Andrew was all alone in the universe.

The solid four walls of his room were somehow comforting, nostalgic in a wrong kind of way. The four walls of the room reminded him of the garden.

It was hypocritical, to long for the familiarity of the cage and yet shame Neil for the same misguided yearning.

With the dawn, Andrew tiptoed out of the room and out of the apartment. He took Kevin’s sedan, a terrible car that it was, and drove out of the city. The radio played what humans dared to call human those days and Andrew itched to turn it off, but the power button was stuck.

He didn’t understand why Kevin wouldn’t lose the car and buy another one. Kevin’s apartment spoke of money the way Kevin spoke of his sport, with an ease that had been with him since birth. Andrew didn’t understand the sentiment of keeping a thing for the sake of keeping it, because of the memories attached to it.

It was a human thing to do and Andrew, even when living in the tiny body of his, was not a human.

Andrew stopped by the edge of a forest and left the car there, unlocked but tucked away from the road. Its wheels were muddy, weeds sticking out of it, and Andrew did not care a bit.

He followed the path between the trees, lead into the heart of the forest. Although weak, he could feel the presence of animals who noticed him, curious but cautious of him. The song of the forest caressed his mind, occupied by the thoughts of irony and guilt and sentiment. Being as old as he was, he should had expected the universe to answer.

The universe had always been ironic in its own, bizarre ways.

Andrew did not expect to find a dying fox deep in the woods and yet it was a sign so obvious.

-

The animal was nothing but a young pup. It had lost one of its limbs, the left back paw. Andrew had closed the ugly tear, but the limb didn’t grow back. The failure that was witnessed by no one but the trees, his gift refused, his hand too weak, laid heavy in Andrew’s gut.

Andrew had taken the fox home with hands trembling, always trembling.

-

Kevin Day, as expected of him, did not react well to a wild animal limping around his expensive apartment. He regarded the fox with wariness as he avoided it on his way to the living room, where Andrew sat on the sofa.

“There is a fox in our apartment,” Kevin said once he folded himself on the armchair, legs bended off the floor and pressed to his chest.

“You are very observant,” Andrew replied. He couldn’t look away from his hands.

Kevin sighed, breathing out what must had been at least century of built-up annoyance. “Care to explain why there is a fox in our apartment?”

“I decided to adopt,” Andrew said, “Except I hate kids. People in general.”

“So I’ve heard,” Kevin hummed, like he believed the scene to be a bad dream he was to wake up from any second. “What does it eat?”

“People. That’s why it’s a win-win situation.”

“Right, right.” Kevin nodded. His voice was pitched in hysteria. “Does the man-eater have a name?”

“Giving the fox a name will not stop it from eating your flesh, Kevin.”

“Right. Jupiter it is then.”

-

In the middle of preparing a disgusting green thing people called a salad, Kevin raised a hand to his forehead and slided down onto the floor. This time, he was out of it for almost half an hour. This time, neither he or Andrew joked when he opened his eyes.

-

Neil kept his distance from the animal, a distance Kevin mistook for fear and Andrew understood for the concern it was. During the thousands of years, Neil had forgotten himself. It would take more than a flower for the fog to clear up.

Andrew sat on the floor in the living room and he wasn’t sure if Neil desired to remembered in the first place.

The fox lay by Andrew’s feet, grateful the way humans were not. It followed Andrew around, never wandered too far away from him. It kept by his side and slept in front of his bed when Andrew needed to rest. It allowed Andrew to touch its fur, as if it knew Andrew didn’t touch with the intention of harming.

The animal circled around Neil with a strange respect int its step, a safe distance between them. Neil didn’t attempt to touch it no matter how apparent his curiosity was.

Andrew gazed at the fox and wished it could speak instead of humans. He reached out and rubbed its head, taking some of its remaining pain away. The fox, _Jupiter_ , titled its head and licked Andrew’s palm as thanks.

-

It was Andrew who found Neil on the roof.

Leaving the fox alone with Kevin was risky, not because they would hurt each other, but because they would drive each other crazy. The animal didn’t follow the strict rules Kevin set for everyone and Kevin was no fun according to the young fox. It didn’t say so, but Andrew could tell.

Neil sat on the edge of the rood as he’d seen Andrew do many times before, legs dangling in the air.

Andrew had brought him a jacket, an ugly orange thing Neil seemed to enjoy, but he couldn’t seem to take a step forward.

“Kevin will force it to learn how to read and then to read his list if you are gone for too long,” Neil called out, but didn’t turn around.

It wasn’t a dismissal; it was an easy way out if Andrew ever wished for easy. Nothing with Neil had ever been easy.

Andrew snapped out of his haze and crossed the distance between them, settling on the cold concrete next to Neil. He tossed the jacket in Neil’s lap, unsure what else to do with it.

“I’m more worried about Kevin crushing his skull on the corner of the table,” Andrew said, a truth that the wind tore away from him and carried somewhere safe. Neil barely registered it.

Neil ran his fingers over the sleek material but didn’t move to put the extra layer on. Neil was present bodily, but Andrew had a good guess where his mind had wandered to. He looked miles and centuries away, back in the garden.

“I do not fear heights,” Neil said.

Andrew’s body betrayed him once more, the air stuck somewhere in his throat and refusing to fall into his lungs. He clutched at the soft fabric of his sweatpants, knuckles white and the world around dark.

He didn’t have words to say. Neil remembered himself after all.

“Why did you bring the fox?” Neil asked when they had been sitting on the roof for hours.

Perhaps it was minutes, a mere second. Andrew wouldn’t had known, drowning in the sea of memories.

“I couldn’t heal it to complete health,” Andrew said.

The revelation jerked Neil back to the present time and place. He didn’t ask Andrew all the questions Andrew couldn’t answer, but his expression spoke volumes of his surprise. Much like Andrew, he didn’t understand the reason or the possibility, but he understood the meaning.

Wordlessly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small knife. Its handle was of light-coloured wood, delicate symbols caved into it. It reminded Andrew of a dagger he once used to own. It might as well had been the very same one.

Neil was the one to carry the knife but his eyes regarded the blade with guarded distaste. Andrew understood then.

“You kept the blade that pierced Kevin’s chest.”

Neil didn’t look at him, but he nodded. “Strange, isn’t it.”

It wasn’t, not really. Andrew didn’t tell him that.

Neil held the blade to his palm and pressed down, sliced his skin with one sharp cut. His body began bleeding and Andrew’s chest tightened at the sight.

“Heal me,” Neil said with a naivety that Andrew reminisced, pure and innocent. Death had never been as tainted as humans liked to believe.

Andrew covered Neil’s palm with his own. Neil spread his fingers apart and Andrew’s slid in the empty spaces between. Neil’s hand was sticky and hot, uncomfortably so, and all of it made it almost impossible to focus on anything except the burning touch.

Andrew closed his eyes, if only because he couldn’t stand to gaze at Neil or their interweaved fingers.

When he dared to face the world again, the blood trapped between their palms had been drying. Andrew peeled his hand away and hoped, like a foolish human, he hoped –

Neil’s cut had closed and healed. There was, however, a thin white scar running across his palm.

It was to be expected, but neither of them wished to see it happen. Andrew’s hands, as they usually did, trembled under his hateful stare.

Neil, never one to miss a thing, tightened his grip, his touch a steel reminder of the reality. Right then, miles above a city, he was his true self and Andrew-

Andrew felt a spark of the fire that his emotions used to be.

-

He was _Abram_ , his true self, and Andrew had loved him.

-

Kevin had decided to return to his usual routine, which meant training. Andrew, to keep his word and to monitor Kevin’s sudden blackouts, followed him each time.

He had considered seeking out the human doctor, but he rejected the idea fairly quickly. Human science could do little to fix a problem of unnatural source.

That day, Kevin attempted to introduce his teammates to Andrew, a foolish effort that Neil, for some reason, admired. Andrew refused to listen to the names thrown at him, much less to remember them.

Neil shook everyone’s hand, the introductions a little overdue. His grip was humanly impossible for someone his built, but what made Andrew snicker made Kevin’s teammates slap Neil’s back.

They allowed him to play with the team, as for the lack of skill he made up with his speed.

Andrew sat on the empty bleachers. He watched the men run around like madmen, chasing a ball as if it was more than that. He didn’t understand that aspect of humanity either, wasting energy on something that didn’t matter. They fought like gladiators and yet the only thing on the line was their pride, thoughtless and fragile.

Neil missed his mark and the ball flew towards Andrew, not entirely an accident. Andrew caught the ball in his hand and the pure force of it against his sensitive palm stung, but Andrew wasn’t one to let it show on his face. He held the ball up above his head and waited.

Neil jogged across the field and up the bleachers. He stopped a stair under Andrew’s row, his gaze wild as it reached Andrew. He looked, for the lack of a better word, alive.

“Perhaps you should leave this for the professionals,” Andrew said, lowering his hand but not extending it. “Kevin should know some.”

Neil stared at him for a second longer and then flung his head back, laughing. He was breath-taking in his beauty, ancient and yet as timeless as he was. He recovered from his laughing fit faster than Andrew did.

“Come play with us,” Neil said with a grin still on his lips. “Just one game.”

Andrew tore his eyes from him and tossed the ball up in the air, catching it once more. The weight of it was unfamiliar but quick to get used to, and so Andrew threw it back to Neil.

“I didn’t know the human stupidity was contagious, but you clearly caught it.”

Neil huffed, amused by something Andrew didn’t understand. “You will not know until you catch it.”

With that, Neil saluted Andrew and skipped down the stairs, back to the field and the game.

Andrew might had already been infected.

-

That night by the river, as Andrew sat up to look at him better, Abram did not wish to be seen.

The high of Andrew’s day was drowned out by Abram’s low, the sorrow in his eyes. Not a god and not a human, he was worn out by the world’s tragedies falling to his feet. He had guided warriors the same way he had guided children, all victims of the time, all victims of the human wars.

“Do you not wish, from time to time, to interfere? To take from the unworthy and to give to the deserving?” he asked Andrew. “We could do that. End the wars and promise a future to those who are lost. Why do we not?”

Andrew looked at him and understood. He understood Abram’s reasons and Abram’s mind, so much brighter than what the humans imagined.

And yet, Andrew said, “It is not our place to interfere.”

-

There used to be an eternal silence.

There used to be an eternal silence, disturbed only by an occasional ring of a bell that meant no good.

Now, however, there was a knock on the door of Andrew’s bedroom early in the morning. It was a quiet sound, a gentle brush of knuckled against the wood. Andrew would had missed it if he was asleep. He guessed that was the point and that’s why he opened the door.

The fox sleeping under his bed awoke at the sound, but did not move from its spot.

Neil stood there as Andrew had expected him too. Sleep was still tugging at his eyelids, embracing him with a softness visible in the slump of his shoulders.

“Come with me,” Neil said, but there was a question in his eyes.

And so, Andrew went.

Still weakened from the visit of the gardens, they were limited to the human means of transportation. As imaginary friends of Kevin Day, they were dependent on his terrible sedan.

Neil didn’t check to see if Andrew was following him, not even when he slipped in the driver seat and the engine roared under his heavy foot.

Andrew allowed himself to stare at the side of Neil’s face, for long enough to call it daring. There was nothing subtle left about his eyes on Neil, uncaring if he was to be caught. The human days were too short to pretend he ever searched for anyone but Neil.

Neil, as aware and as uncaring, drove for miles and hours, but he didn’t speak once.

Andrew’s throat was scratchy the way it usually was in the morning, his voice raspy and his breath bad. Compared to the weight of the universe resting on his shoulders, that was the smallest of his worries, but somehow was still the first one when Neil stopped the car.

It was disorienting, how much humanity could be hiding in a pile of flesh and bones.

Neil kicked the door open and the gentlest of the winds caressed Andrew’s cheek, fresh and salty.

“What are we doing at the beach?” Andrew asked as he opened his door too.

Neil sighed and leaned back into his seat, gazing at the endless body of sand and water spreading in front of them. He didn’t look at Andrew once since he knocked on Andrew’s door. Andrew loathed himself for noticing it.

“I dug around after we talked on the roof,” Neil said. “About the fear, I mean.”

Andrew hummed what could had been an agreement, could had been anything.

“I poked around Kevin’s brain.”

Andrew suppressed a sigh at the foolishness of the act. He didn’t need to inform Neil how dangerous it was. It was already done anyway. “And?”

“Apparently I am terrified of beaches.”

Neil shifted in the leather seat and looked at Andrew, the blue of his eyes drowning in anxious anticipation. Andrew’s hands sweated where they were clenched in fists by his sides to stop them from snaking away from his body.

“Okay.” Andrew nodded. “Okay.”

Neil didn’t move for so long Andrew almost mistook him for one of the greek statues. He couldn’t bear to watch him anymore. Legs wooden, he climbed out of the car and lighted a cigarette in a pathetic fight with the wind.

Andrew smoked and tried not to think about anything except the smoke filling his lungs. Neil made that difficult as he finally gathered himself and threw himself out of the car. He stared at Andrew over the roof until Andrew looked back.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Neil said, a joke as old as they were.

Instead of waiting for a reply, Neil sprinted down to the beach.

Andrew finished his cigarette. He had half the mind to lock the door before he followed Neil, the footsteps in the cold sand and the echo of Neil’s laugh.

Andrew caught up with Neil where the ocean met the sand, reaching an inch short of the tips of Neil’s sneakers. The tremor running down Neil’s spine was at first subtle but oh so obvious for those who were looking for it.

Andrew, like a fool, had been looking for it since the beginning of time.

“I feel it,” Neil choked out, half a sob and half a giggle. “Is this what you feel on the roof?”

“At first.”

Neil dug the tip of his shoe in the wet sand, twisting his foot until the hole was deep enough to hold water in it. Neil pulled his sneaker, damp then, away and took a step back from his creation.

“At first?”

Neil sat in the sand and untied his shoelaces, kicking the sneakers off his feet. He burrowed his toes in the hand and shivered, but it didn’t stop his from sticking his big toe in the hole he created as well.

“The feeling dulled over time,” Andrew said as he crouched down beside Neil.

“What else makes you feel, then?” Neil asked.

Andrew considered lying. He considered denying the events past and the events yet to come, predictable easily. He considered striping Neil of his right to know, but Andrew wasn’t those who took from him.

And so, at the beach that felt like the end and beginning of the world, he said, “You do.”

Millenniums later, Neil had no reason to look as surprised as he did. He had to know why there were two gardens, why there was a fence that couldn’t be crossed.

Neil stared at the ocean and for once, he had no words to speak.

-

When they got back, late in the afternoon, Kevin lay on the floor in the hall. Except that wasn’t entirely correct.

Kevin’s _body_ was lying on the floor. Kevin, or rather Kevin’s _soul_ , sat beside the unmoving body, and apparently had waited a few hours for an explanation.

-

There used to be Andrew and there used to be Neil.

Now there were, however, Life and Death, living in bodies that weakened their powers as much as they weakened the seal of their emotions.

Kevin, still out of his body, floated around the living room and forced a frown on his face so he didn’t show he had actually been enjoying the experience. The floating, at least.

It had been weeks, and only sitting in the living room that evening, Andrew realised how right Neil had been. Andrew spent those days locked in, distant from what could strike his chest and yet wishing for it to happen. Now, when it was the time to put an end to their charade, Andrew couldn’t find the right words.

He had barely talked to Kevin at all.

Kevin, floating across the two of them, watched them with suspicion he’d been gathering for weeks, all of their slips up and thoughtlessness. His soul detaching from his body was his biggest clue.

There was no easy way to lay the weight on Kevin’s shoulders, and so Neil said, “We aren’t humans.”

Kevin, shocked and yet not really, attempted to pull at the sleeve of his jersey. Nothing happened, as souls didn’t wear clothing. It was probably that exact moment when it truly hit Kevin. He was nothing but a ghost, a blurry figure that Andrew preferred to see with a face on.

Andrew had no idea how Neil saw the souls and he did not think he would ever ask. Neil’s mind could be, if Andrew was to say, a little twisted at times.

“Okay,” Kevin said. “Sure. What are you then?”

“What do you think?” Neil asked back, his tongue sharp but his eagerness for the answer real.

Kevin regarded Neil with a glare he must had picked up from Andrew and in a moment of great stupidity but in absolute seriousness, he said, “Demons.”

Neil laughed.

Kevin did not laugh and Andrew didn’t blame him.

Neil had a wild aura around him, something that drew people to him and they either adored him or despised him. Andrew still couldn’t tell where he stood with Kevin, whom he stabbed but with whom he played a stupid sport.

“Not exactly,” Andrew said over the echo of Neil’s chuckles.

Neil collected himself at the sound of Andrew’s low voice and stood from his spot on the sofa, circling the room. Andrew clicked his tongue and Neil got the hint, stopping behind Andrew. He laid his hand on the sofa, a mere inch from Andrew’s shoulder and sighed.

Andrew’s whole body didn’t tingle.

“We are Life and Death,” Neil said, as if he knew Andrew couldn’t. The words fell off his tongue with difficulty, never spoken before, foreign to say and foreign to hear. “Literally.”

Kevin did not react at first. He stared at Neil, face blank, and only because of the windows in the living room, allowing enough moonlight to sneak in, could Andrew watch Kevin break.

It was hysteria that Andrew had seen before, except on a different face. Kevin’s laughter was choked, reminding Andrew of his human, terribly so.

Before Andrew could dwell on the similarity, Kevin coughed and gasped for air, the same way he did that one morning on the hill. Andrew jumped to his feet and strode to him, hand stopping mid-air when he realised his human hand couldn’t touch Kevin’s soul.

“Calm down,” Andrew said, “Nothing can hurt you right now. Stop this.”

Kevin did. He froze at Andrew’s voice, his expression as clear as it would be on his real face. Andrew jerked his hand away and took a step back, ignoring the twisting of his stomach and ignoring the look Neil sent him.

“I want to live,” Kevin panted, although he didn’t, technically, have lungs. The choking was all in his head and Andrew wondered if that was the case the whole time. “Andrew, I want to live.”

“You will.”

“I want to live.”

“You will,” Andrew said.

“Okay.” Kevin nodded, his eyes still wide. “So, what are you doing here? Did a God send you, or-“

It would had been funny if the situation was different. If Andrew didn’t stand there frozen and Neil didn’t rush forward, only to be caught by Andrew’s trembling hand. Always, always trembling.

Neil glared at Andrew. Behind his anger, the first and only layer that Kevin could see, laid what Andrew had been overlooking for centuries. Misplaced concern that Andrew didn’t deserve and hatred directed at no one but Neil himself.

Andrew pried Neil’s fist open, finger by finger, until Neil’s whole arm went slack in Andrew’s grip. Andrew ran his finger over the thin scar on Neil’s palm, once, twice. He then released Neil, a sign of trust. Neil took a deep breath and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

“Do you believe in the _God_ , Kevin?” Andrew asked. “Humans made up devils to blame for their shortcomings and they made up gods to bear their responsibilities.”

Kevin, still floating, put a safe distance between himself and the two of them. “I guess that’s a no. Then what are you doing here?”

That Andrew could answer. It was, after all, more than obvious right then.

“Your soul is torn.”

-

“Will I remember all of this?” Kevin asked, floating above his body.

Andrew looked at his blurry face, still unmistakably Kevin, and nodded.

“I really hoped I would not,” Kevin said and lowered himself in his body.

Andrew nodded again, a solemn agreement, and laid his hand on Kevin’s chest, sealing his soul back into his body. He slept two whole days after that.

-

Andrew didn’t wish to be found that night. He forgot, however, that Neil couldn’t actually read his mind. That was all only a pretence.

Neil couldn’t read Andrew’s mind, but he could read Andrew, and so he stopped after only a few steps. The distance between them could had been miles, could had been millenniums, could had been the fence in the gardens, and Andrew’s skin would still crawl at Neil’s presence.

He stood at the edge of the roof, free of handrail, stared down at the sidewalk. He relayed on his mortal body to keep its balance while he swum somewhere in the infinite universe.

Andrew wasn’t a fool. He knew that the hand squeezing his gut was not a fear of heights. His chest ached where his human used to live and his chest ached where Neil slept in his heart. The body was too small, too fragile, for such emotion.

“What are you not telling me?” Neil asked.

Andrew straightened his back and closed his eyes, the sounds of the city for once bringing him peace. He ignored Neil’s question and asked his own instead.

“Do you blame me still?”

It was those words that broke the endless stream of Neil’s tolerance towards Andrew’s ignorance.

Andrew heard him coming and yet he startled at the presence of another being next to him. Neil grabbed the collar of Andrew’s sweater and didn’t let go even after Andrew had stepped off the treacherous edge of the roof. His touch tickled the back of Andrew’s neck.

“The only one burdening you with blame is yourself,” Neil said. “The eternity is too long to spend it dwelling on one man.”

Andrew turned to face Neil, to take in his red hair and his eyes gleaming under the moonlight. It had taken years, centuries and then millenniums, but time meant nothing to an ageless being. Andrew accepted the ache in his chest for what it was.

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking the one I linger on is him.”

He shook Neil’s grip off, effortlessly because Neil would never hold him down, and stormed off the roof before he could see that puzzled expression of Neil’s.

The fox had waited for him at the step of his bedroom.

-

That day, when the spring skies were bright and the sun blinding, Andrew decided to no longer interfere in the business of humans. Young and foolish, he came to say one last goodbye, and that was the downfall of it all.

His human’s brother, convicted of crimes Andrew didn’t understand, was to be executed. Young and foolish, Andrew had listened to the human cries of the man who gave back for what he took. He took the man’s brother far away from the palace, to never return, and sent him off to live his life free.

Then, he wore the brother’s face and accepted the human’s fate as his own. He could not die and he could not be killed.

Andrew could, however, be punished for his crimes and Neil for his own. Young and foolish, they both were.

-

There used to be a limping fox.

There used to be a limping fox, a curious animal, intelligent beyond words.

In the morning, the fox was lumping no more.

It lay on one spot, by the windows, paws under its chin and its breathing heavy. Andrew sat beside the animal and stroked its fur, but his hands were no help in the fight against what was meant to happen. The fox knew as well as Andrew did, and so they stayed by the windows the whole day.

As the sun set, the fox was breathing no more.

Andrew’s eyes burned as the movement under his palm slowed and ceased. He refused to look away from the city and he refused to look at Neil as entered the room, called by what neither of them could explain.

If Andrew felt every and each first breath, Neil felt every and each last exhale.

Andrew’s eyes burned and he refused to look at Neil using the last bits of his own strength to send the fox’s body away.

“It had to be,” Neil said, his voice soft but his words firm.

At last, Andrew looked at him. Neil reached out, summoning the coin. Slowly but steadily, the coin was spinning, an inch short of touching Neil’s open palm.

Neil scowled at it, as if the coin itself was at fault, and sent it away.

-

Kevin no longer passed out. He didn’t ask about the fox. But he did walk around Andrew on his tiptoes, preparing for something Andrew should had prepared for instead.

-

“What does it mean?” Kevin asked.

They sat in the living room as they did many times before, just Andrew and his human, many days after the truth was revealed to Kevin.

Kevin had avoided Andrew and Neil in a way he thought was subtle, leaving for practice early and staying there late. He chose his words with more finesse than before, the topics restricted to food and house work.

Andrew hadn’t done a single task Kevin had written on the list under Andrew’s name since ever, but these last few days, Kevin wasn’t nagging him about it. It was unravelling, the silence and the respect that Andrew wished for but misplaced.

Kevin was, however, rather confused than scared, and that was refreshing after the eternity of unnecessary fear. The human’s fate could not, after all, change.

The talk was, as many things, inevitable.

Part of Andrew desired to let Neil take over and solve the issue at hand, but the bigger, sensible part of Andrew prevented the disaster. Neil could no longer change his forms to grin with all teeth sharp, but he still had some tricks up his sleeve left. Kevin Day was not to die because of a heart attack before he even turned thirty.

“What does what mean?” Andrew asked, tired and yet strangely patient that night.

Kevin stretched his arms out in front of him, fine muscle flexing under his skin. Andrew could, terribly humanly so, feel all the ice cream sitting in the pit of his gut, a self-consciousness programmed into his body.

“My soul being torn,” Kevin said.

Andrew himself didn’t know.

Kevin’s soul couldn’t cross the line and yet the longer it remained on the Earth, the more it struggled within Kevin’s body. Andrew, an ageless being, could think of only one solution. It happened to be his worst nightmare.

“We don’t decide when someone lives or dies,” Andrew started, to clarify the first misconception people liked to share within each other. “We are the guides of the souls. And yet, yours is torn because of me.”

Kevin peaked up at that, eyeing Andrew with interest. “You don’t seem guilty.”

“I am not.”

Kevin sighed, but the conversation didn’t bother him enough to stop his stretching exercises as he circled his wrists. “What did you do to it?”

“That’s the funny part,” Andrew said. “When a soul is, undecided, let’s say, we meet and we toss the coin.”

“You toss a coin,” Kevin deadpanned. “To decide a life of a person.”

Andrew clicked his tongue. “It is more complicated than that. And we came up with this long before you fools thought it was a cool thing to do. One of you probably saw us.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. He spent too much time with Neil lately. “Right.”

“We toss the coin,” Andrew continued, shooting Kevin a pointed look. “And the coin knows if the soul is to pass over or stay.”

Kevin let his arms hand loose by his sides, gaze fixed on Andrew. Just like long time ago, when Kevin was a bruised boy waiting for the Death, for those eyes Andrew would promise him the world.

“And mine?”

“Yours was to stay,” Andrew said. He was no liar, however, and so he admitted, “The coin didn’t think so.”

Kevin sucked in a shaky breath, his composure slowly cracking. “So you let me live when I shouldn’t have.”

Andrew didn’t have any excuse for that, but luckily Kevin decided not to dwell on it for the sake of his own sanity and more importantly, for Kevin at least, his pride.

“Neil told me that to touch a human is one thing and to kiss a human is another.”

Andrew sighed. Neil had always been, as humans liked to call it, a little petty thing.

“I didn’t hear a question.”

“It was implied.”

Andrew pushed off the sofa and stood on unsteady feet in front of Kevin. “Someone out there thought it would be funny,” he said and aimed for the doorway. “You humans love to tell the tales of the kiss of the Death.”

Kevin, surprising Andrew as much as himself, didn’t let his answer slip between his fingers. “What does the kiss of the Life do then?”

Andrew stopped dead in his tracks, which was both ironic and a little sad. He didn’t turn to Kevin, worried about what his face would tell Kevin. He settled for words that he could control.

“Eternal life of the soul.”

Kevin moved behind him, Andrew heard as much, but he didn’t approach Andrew. For a human, Kevin learnt fast.

“Is the kiss literal?”

Andrew suppressed a sigh as he suppressed about everything. “I have spent thousands of years trying not to think about that, Kevin.”

“Why?”

“Because I had once kissed a human,” Andrew said and strode back to his bedroom, a safe place within four walls that didn’t keep him in, but everyone else out.

-

Life had been sending Death gifts since the beginning of time, those it had adored and those it had despised all the same. Death had accepted each one of them, but never returned the attention.

Or so Andrew thought.

-

Andrew, used to locks and fences, opened the bathroom door without a second thought.

It was so carelessly human that terrified him, but the chilling realisation lasted mere seconds, interrupted by the yelp coming from the bathtub. Andrew wouldn’t be able to mistake its owner for someone else even if he wished for it.

He flung his arm over his eyes, his eyelashes tickling the thin skin stretching over his elbow. Andrew did not know himself to be ticklish. Blinded, he reached out, hand searching for the door knobble it held only moments ago.

Neil’s laughter echoed through the small space, bouncing off the titled walls and finding its home in Andrew’s chest. “It’s okay,” Neil said lightly. “Stay a while.”

Andrew didn’t move.

“I have bubbles here; I wouldn’t blemish your purity or something.”

“Is this your way of giving an explicit consent?”

Andrew didn’t need to see to know Neil rolled his eyes right then.

“Yes.”

Andrew lowered his arm and he didn’t look, not yet, opting to close and lock the door. His gaze slipped to the mirror, fogged thanks to the heat of Neil’s bath. Andrew stepped to the sink and dragged his finger across the mirror, like he’d seen humans do so many times before.

“Write Kevin is an idiot,” Neil supplied helpfully.

It was Andrew’s turn to roll his eyes at Neil’s stupidity, which might had been a simple cheerfulness that Andrew didn’t understand.

He wrote the words in the old language, surprised he remembered symbols other than Neil’s name. They came up with the symbols out of boredom, not out of need for them. What was there for Life or Death to write, after all.

Slower than the flowers blooming at the beginning of the spring, Andrew turned to the bathtub tucked in the corner of the room. All there was to see of Neil was his head, bubbles reaching up to his chin and his hair messier than normally. His lips curled in a small smile, private and reserved entirely for Andrew.

Andrew didn’t know what to do with that information.

“I think I used too much of this bubble stuff,” Neil said. He gathered some of the foam in his pam, blowing a few bubbles towards Andrew.

Andrew watched them float and fall, splash against the floor. They reminded him of humans, but perhaps everything temporary reminded him of humans. Perhaps everything reminded him of something, the downside of his immortal mind.

He couldn’t make it stop, but perhaps that wasn’t a reason to stop trying.

Andrew’s leg cramped, a sudden reality check, and so he sat down on the cold tiles.

Neil scooted over in the bath and pressed his cheek against the edge of the tub, gazing at Andrew. His hair stuck to his face, water dripping down his nose. Andrew’s ribs dug into his heart.

They shouldn’t had been able to do that. They did anyway.

Andrew shouldn’t had been able to feel anything but a void. He did anyway.

“Kevin will make you buy a new bottle of it,” Andrew said. “With their stupid money.”

Neil’s smile grew wider, stretching across his dimpled cheeks. “At least it isn’t so heavy anymore.” He picked up one of the bottles sitting on the tub and held it to his face, reading the back sticker. Andrew enjoyed stickers. “They should have had this stuff in the medieval times. Would had saved a few thousands lives.”

“They would have died anyway,” Andrew said.

The smile fell of Neil’s face, dragging Andrew down with it. “They would. But not because they bathed in their own faeces.”

Andrew didn’t have anything else to say, but that was never a problem with Neil.

“Ask and I will ask you in return,” Neil said, the seriousness on his face doing nothing to make it any less breath taking.

Andrew had a list of things to ask. About that day in the ancient times, about the gardens, about his human and about his fox. He wanted to ask something entirely different too, to ask for the permission to taste the smile of Neil’s lips.

The answer Neil was offering, however, was to a question Andrew had been too afraid to ask for weeks.

“Why did you attempt to kill Kevin?”

Neil sunk deeper in the bath, the silence between them so heavy Andrew could hear the bubbles popping.

“I wished to redeem myself, to free myself,” Neil said at last. “Kevin, who almost got away, for the one that did get away.”

Andrew stared at the spatter of water on the floor, unable to look Neil in the eye. He supposed the sentiment was shared.

“What changed your mind?”

Neil chuckled, but the sound lacked all of its previous lightness. “You did.”

-

It wasn’t an answer to anything, really.

The longer they remained on Earth the more they lost, and yet the more they gained. There was no one to answer to and no one to question.

Alone in the universe, the two of them found their home on Earth, among humans. For siding with mortals, they were torn apart by what they couldn’t explain and by what they couldn’t explain, they were brought back together.

Andrew no longer was no longer seeking explanation. He longed for freedom he earned, for the possibility of choice he deserved.

The sleepers might be buried under the surface of Earth and they might have never existed to begin with. Quite frankly, Andrew, at least halfway human, did not give a damn.

-

On the roof, Andrew sat still dazed by Neil’s smile and by the pain the sight brought to his chest, cigarette in one hand and the coin in other. It was heavier than he remembered.

Andrew inhaled the smoke of the cigarette and held his breath, tossing the coin up in the air.

**Author's Note:**

> Things I will want to say and thus will say:
> 
> 1\. It was the fox backstory that held this whole series in place when I first started working with this idea, but writing it, I didnt want to go into detail there, because I would be the first one crying  
> 2\. I just think it would be neat if the way Andrew and Neil saw souls reflected their own views on the humans, not the other way around. I do not want to know, however, what that would mean regarding Neil. If you have any ideas tho, I will listen  
> 3\. We are finally the past the whole 'human body' phrase (now only a 'body') and I am so happy because in the first part, that could had been a drinkin game
> 
> As always, all feedback, ideas or theories are appreciated as I would love to steal them for the last part :)


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